Ryoko walked along the streets of Konoha with her younger sister, a small pile of Ryo in her hands with instructions to purchase new clothing and groceries for herself and Joseibi while they stayed in Konoha. They'd already been provided with a small apartment and a promise that the rent would be kept up for them.
The young, black-haired girl bit her lip and looked back toward the Hokage's office. She was confused about the situation.
The people seemed generally concerned and trustworthy about her and her sister, but the questions that nice, scarred man kept asking were uncomfortable for some reason.
"Feel free to relax," the tall, scarred man said to the little girl in front of him. "There's no reason to sit in seiza for this entire talk."
"Ano…" the girl said, biting her lip. "I sh…should always behave properly, Mo..morino-sama."
The stuttering and discomfort in people he was conversing with wasn't something new to Ibiki, but he'd rarely had an interview where he wasn't the direct cause of. The girl wasn't quite scared of him, but she was terrified of something.
"There are always times to relax, Ryoko-chan," Ibiki said.
"Ano…" Ryoko said, looking around. "But…we're…we are…we are…" she caught her breath. "We are not here to spar. So I must maintain proper composure at all times."
She found sparring relaxing? How interesting.
"Did your father teach you these manners?" he asked.
"I...iie," Ryoko answered hesitantly, shaking her head. "Mother says Father does not need such polished manners. Mother says it is not manly."
"What about your little sister?" Ibiki asked.
The girl flushed brightly and hung her head down, biting her lip.
"Ano…" she said turning very nervous. "I n…n..know she is my responsibility, but I…I…can not teach her."
Ibiki had watched the girls for an hour or two while the ate and waited to be called on. Ryoko had two ways of correcting her little-sister's behavior. Either she gave loud and clear protests which the blonde largely ignored, or she spoke lowly in quiet tones and Joseibi quickly corrected herself. Without the sort of frantic fear that Ryoko had when she caught herself in a "mistake."
Ryoko was teaching Joseibi just fine, though Ibiki wondered if she herself realized that.
"She seems to be doing fine," Ibiki said. "I've seen kids who are much ruder and insolent than her."
Joseibi looked from place to place, carefully. Considering this was a ninja town, some part of her had assumed it would have wall to wall versions of her old man and his ideas of training. She was having to admit that she'd so far only seen two training styles.
The old man's, which quite frankly scared the hell out of her, and Ryoko's, which were cool and all, but didn't seem to help all that much. Sure, she could beat the crap out of most kids her age and a few older bullies, but she wasn't capable of the sort of superhuman things her sister and father could do.
Of course, her sister explained that was because she wasn't attuned to the flow of chi yet, but she hadn't yet explained how to find that attunement. Joseibi figured that's because her sister hadn't found a safe way to teach it yet.
The old man threw Ryoko into situations where she had to learn instantly or else suffer, maybe even die. He rarely seemed to show some of the same benefits Ryoko had from the extreme training, even if he had some similar abilities. Plus Joseibi had never seen himself doing anything like what he did to Ryoko. Joseibi had only once heard him mention his own master, and it was in hushed tones.
That made her think that her old man's master was just as bad or worse than her old man.
Ryoko, meanwhile, took the time to show Joseibi what to do, what not to do, explained things quietly, stuttering all the way, and every once in a while called a sudden spar, or "special training" if one of their parents were watching. Even those spars were nothing like the furious battles Ryoko had with their father, and the special training, while always devious and at times aggravating and painful, was never really dangerous like their father's could sometimes be.
Joseibi had never had a serious injury in training since Ryoko had started teaching her last year, by comparison to Ryoko's medical record for the same period.
Which brought her back to the current situation and what she was watching. In the open ground of what looked to be some kind of school, and kids were practicing hand-to-hand combat and shuriken target practice as she watched. Others were meditating in a corner, or trying to. Most seemed to be sleeping, like she usually did.
The handful of instructors she saw were teaching more like Ryoko did, than their father.
What was most telling was the kid in the corner, crying as an instructor and a nurse looked over a skinned arm carefully. Joseibi could tell from here it wasn't anything serious. Their old man wouldn't have given the injury even much of a first look, forget a second look or a full examination.
It made her think back toward her own discussion with the scarred guy.
"You want to know what our parents are like, doncha," Joseibi said behind narrowed eyes.
Ibiki arced an eyebrow at how quickly the six-year old girl figured that out. Her own sister had been uncomfortable with his succession of questions, but stayed more or less naïve to the reasons, at least consciously.
Joseibi seemed to be a lot more socially aware. Then again, both girls were intelligent and in a situation he would more equate to a prisoner of war situation than any sort of family as Konoha considered the term. They had obviously both adapted to survive.
"Yes, I do," Ibiki said, bluntly, smiling at the girl. "We have concerns about your parents."
"Whatever," Joseibi said. "They're jerks. And they ain't like other parents I see lookin' around at other kids. But this is a ninja village and maybe you'd think the way they do things is A-Ok."
"That's what we're trying to find out," Ibiki said.
This girl would be a excellent shinobi.
"And if everything isn't A-Ok?" Joseibi asked.
"You would stay here, at least until you're old enough to make your own decisions," the interrogator told her.
"When's that?" Joseibi asked.
"Sixteen, or someone who's graduated the ninja academy," Ibiki had said.
Joseibi grimaced and opened her mouth to talk about her mother's sword.
Joseibi had originally scoffed at the idea, unwilling to put herself into the sort of crazy situations Ryoko was thrown into under the name of "training." However, looking at that academy, she was beginning to have second thoughts about the idea.
Granted, there would probably still be dangerous trainings and situations, but they would be her choice and from the looks of things, there'd be people to keep an eye out for her health.
"Hey, Ryoko," Joseibi said, looking toward the academy.
Ahead of her, Ryoko was at a rack in front of a shop, looking through manga. Joseibi didn't have to look to guess that that it was something like Kenshin, or Samurai Deeper Kyo or the like. For as feminine as she was, Ryoko had a boys taste in manga and especially loved anything with swords.
Joseibi suspected that Ryoko liked them as much for ideas on how to use a sword as for the stories.
"What do you need, imouto-chan?" Ryoko asked, glancing toward her sister.
"….Can we get something to eat?" she asked. "There's a ramen stand over there."
"Hai, hai," Ryoko said. "I am almost finished here."
She'd talk to her sister later, now, as they stepped into Ichiraku Ramen, wasn't the time to broach the subject.
No sense starting a fire their first day in town she noted to herself as her elder sister moved to the counter to purchase her manga.
Ibiki stepped out of the academy and moved to stand next to Iruka, a smile blazoned on his face.
"I'm still not sure what the point of changing our schedule like this is," the head of the academy noted quietly. "But it's easy enough to have an extra class outside I guess."
"I think it went fine, Iruka," Ibiki said, smiling as he watched across the street where the two girls where moving to get some food. "Now, excuse me, I think I'll leave before I scar your students for life."
The tall, forbidding man turned back into the building and quickly faded from sight into the shadows.
Iruka quietly shook his head and turned back toward watching the various instructions. As he did, his eyes widened.
"Hold, hold it! Naruto what are you doing?" he shouted moving forward in a rush.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:19)
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